The Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal is a ship canal connecting Sturgeon Bay with Lake Michigan across the Door Peninsula in Door County, Wisconsin. A dredged channel continues through Sturgeon Bay to Green Bay. This combined waterway allows ships to sail between Lake Michigan and Green Bay without traversing the dangerous Porte des Morts strait. The canal is approximately 1.3 mi long, cutting through the eastern side of the peninsula in a northwest-to-southeast orientation. There are no locks.

History

The Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal was dug by a private group headed by then-president of Chicago and North Western Railway, William B. Ogden, between July 8, 1872 and the late fall of 1881. Although smaller craft began using the canal in 1880, it was not open for large-scale watercraft until 1890. Timber along the canal route was burned to get rid of it instead of being used for wood. The cost of completing the 1.3 mi cut in 1881 was $291,461.69. In 1893, the Ogden private investors group sold all interest in the canal to the United States government. Since that time, the canal has been maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Description

The original canal was 100 ft wide and 6 ft deep. , the canal was 125 ft wide and 20 ft deep. Two jetties frame the canal's southeast entrance, each extending about 1200 ft into Lake Michigan. Several famous lighthouses mark the course of the canal and channel, including the Sturgeon Bay Canal Lighthouse at the eastern entrance on the northern side of the canal (approximately 230 ft from Lake Michigan) next to Coast Guard Station Sturgeon Bay; the Sturgeon Bay Canal North Pierhead Light on the Lake Michigan coastline; and the Sherwood Point Lighthouse in Idlewild, on the far western end, on the southern shore of the outer edge of Sturgeon Bay.

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